Tuesday, January 17, 2006

When Behind In The Game, Cheat

The rise of alternative media—political talk radio in the eighties, cable news in the nineties, and the blogosphere in the new millennium—has broken the liberal monopoly over news and opinion outlets. The Left understands acutely the implications of this revolution.... and illiberally are working to smother this flourishing universe of political discourse under a tangle of campaign-finance and media regulations. Their campaign represents the most sustained attack on free political speech in the United States since the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts...The most imminent danger comes from campaign-finance rules, especially those spawned by the 2002 McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Act.... Brian C. Anderson, The Plot to Shush Rush and O'Reilly, City Journal, Winter Edition 2006

If you look back a little here, you'll see a post about how bloggers shouldn't take their freedom for granted. Brian C. Anderson at City Journal offers a refreshing bluntness on the subject.

McCain-Feingold dizzying do's and don't's...have made running for office, contributing to a candidate or cause, or advocating without an attorney at hand unwise and potentially ruinous...campaign finance reform now has the blogosphere in its crosshairs...a first, abandoned draft of proposed FEC WEb rules...regulated all but tiny, password-protected political sites...Recognizing that McCain-Feingold is out of control, liberty-minded Texas Republican Jeb Hensarling introduced the Online Freedom of Speech Act (HR 1606)...the bill reinforces the Internet's current regulation-freee status by excluding blogs and other Web communications from campaign finance strictures. Brought to an expedited vote...that required a two-thirds majority in the House, the bill -- opposed strenuously by the campaign-finance reform "movement" -- failed....

Bloggers should not get caught napping on this one. Read the whole article; then contact your Congressional and Senate representatives and demand that they support the reintroduction of the Online Freedom of Speech Act. We can't wait for, nor depend upon, the confirmation of Judge Alito to protect what is, after all, Constitutionally protected speech. Free speech is not a patron's gift for good behavior; it's a Constitutional right!

Not enough people are looking at this direct attack on American freedoms, not that we should be surprised that it's happening. What the Left has done in response to overwhelming rejection of its program in the past is to engage in character assassination of its critics or in outright censorship. The more things change...